Wis. Marine who vanished in Vietnam is buried 40 years later
By RYAN J. FOLEY
The Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. Ñ A Marine who vanished in Vietnam was buried Monday, capping four decades of efforts by the military to find and identify him.
Gunnery Sgt. Richard W. Fischer was buried in the Madison cemetery where his family purchased a headstone with his name in 1978, when he was declared presumed killed in action.
Hundreds of friends, family and fellow Vietnam veterans attended the burial and an earlier memorial service at a Madison church. Fischer was buried with full military honors.
ÒI think it was a wonderful gathering of closure for the family,Ó said Rev. Dale Chapin, senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church, which helped organize the events. ÒThe dogged perseverance and persistence of the military to find him has made this day possible.Ó
Fischer vanished in January 1968 in VietnamÕs Quang Nam Province when he was part of a Marine ambush team. The graduate of MadisonÕs East High School was 20 years old at the time.
Military investigators started searching for FischerÕs body in the area where he disappeared in the 1990s. After tips from local residents, they excavated a burial site where they found his remains and other nonbiological evidence in 1994.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Feeney, a spokeswoman for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, said investigators initially failed to recover a DNA sequence from bone samples to prove it was Fischer. Technology improved over time and they succeeded in obtaining a sequence earlier this year, she said.
The military asked FischerÕs sister and niece to give DNA samples, which were matched to his DNA in September. FischerÕs remains were flown back to Wisconsin last week from a military base in Hawaii where they had been for more than a decade.
ÒOur country made it a promise to these military servicemen that were going out that if they were lost, we would come and look for them,Ó Feeney said. ÒItÕs our duty to search for these men and women all over the world until each and every one of them is home.Ó
Feeney said her command identifies about 100 U.S. personnel each year. The majority are from southeast Asia.
Some 1,767 soldiers, Marines and civilians remain missing in southeast Asia from the Vietnam War era, according to Department of Defense statistics. The remains of more than 800 Americans have been returned since the end of the war in 1975.
Fischer enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1966 after one year of college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He went to Vietnam in October 1967 and was declared missing in action as a result of hostile fire just months later.
ÒThe family is proud that he followed his call to serve when others were trying to dissuade him and he did so with honor, courage and integrity,Ó Chapin said.
ChapinÕs associate, Rev. Glen Reichelderfer, said MondayÕs events were Òa celebration.Ó
ÒItÕs a celebration thatÕs been happening for 39 years and weÕve just been let in on the secret,Ó Reichelderfer said. ÒNot only is he at home now in Wisconsin, heÕs been home with God for 39 years.Ó